📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Jalpa
- 🌍 Origin: A beautiful striped paste tomato popular among Eastern European collectors.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate. Grows as a very sturdy, compact tree-type bush (shtamb), typically reaching about 24 inches (60 cm) tall outdoors.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Elongated, red paste tomatoes with striking yellow stripes. Length is about 4-4.7 inches (10-12 cm), weighing 2.8-3.5 oz (80-100 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Primarily a processing tomato. The fruits are very dense, not hollow, and feature a thick skin, making them absolutely perfect for whole-fruit canning.
- 💪 Standout Features: Known for producing heavy yields in open ground, demonstrating strong resistance to late blight, and boasting an exceptionally long shelf life (can store at room temperature into December).
Grew it outdoors in open ground – mid-season sturdy tree-type dwarf. The fruits are red with yellow stripes, elongated, about 4-4.7 inches (10-12 cm) long, and weigh 2.8-3.5 oz (80-100 g). They are very firm – excellent for canning.
This season I grew Jalpa, Casady’s Folly*, and Striped Pepper because I really wanted to compare them side-by-side… all grew outdoors. Fruit weight – Casady’s Folly is the smallest, Jalpa and Striped Pepper are the same. Taste – all identical. Plant habit – Striped Pepper is definitely indeterminate, Jalpa is a sturdy tree-type dwarf, Casady’s Folly is a flimsy, wispy-leaved determinate… I hope my little “grow-out comparison” helps someone! 😉
Oksana, what about the yield, was it about the same for all of them too?
Oksana! I grew Casady’s Folly – the main downside for me was the tough, thick skin. How is Jalpa in that regard? Is the skin thin or thick?
Jalpa’s skin is definitely on the thicker side. I really liked them outdoors. It was one of the few varieties last year that actually gave me a decent yield in open ground. I want to grow it again. I absolutely loved them canned in jars.
Girls, the yield is really good for all three varieties, and the skin is a bit thick on all of them…
Oksana, of course this information is helpful 😉. Thank you so much 🙏! This is very important info when trying to choose between varieties 👍.
My Jalpa grew outdoors, no cover at all. The bushes are sturdy, height about 24 inches (60 cm). This variety is mostly for canning. I liked it. High yielding, beautiful, not hollow inside, and showed good resistance to late blight. It stores for a long time – it held up perfectly at room temperature until mid-December.
I liked this variety too, beautiful and productive. We ate them all fresh.
After a one-year break, I grew Jalpa again. And once again, it didn’t let me down.
Quote from Inn@:
After a one-year break, I grew Jalpa again. And once again, it didn’t let me down.
👍 👍 👍
In my opinion, nothing ever lets you down… or maybe you just force them to be fruitful and multiply through sheer willpower! 😂
👏 👏 👏
Edited December 14, 2019 by Drosera
👨🌾 Editor’s Note on Striped Paste Tomatoes:
*Casady’s Folly: Oksana does a fantastic side-by-side comparison of three striped paste tomatoes in this thread. For context, “Casady’s Folly” is a famous, widely grown American heirloom bred by Tom Wagner. Many paste/plum tomatoes suffer from what growers call “wispy foliage” – meaning the leaves look thin, frail, and constantly wilted even when the plant is perfectly healthy. Oksana notes that Jalpa is much easier to manage because it grows as a sturdy “tree-type” dwarf rather than having that spindly, wispy habit!
